Extremely awesome yet a bit rushed

Rating: 9/10 (11 July 2013)

I have been eagerly awaiting the release of Pacific Rim for many months, after being able to see it I can say that the movie was (surprise) fantastic. The fights were visually impressive, the sets were detailed and gritty, the costume designs were good, and the plot wasn't bad (which was what I was afraid of). The movie is very enjoyable, however I will say it did have some flaws that kept it from being the perfect movie I had hoped for. I will list the flaws first, so that way I can end my review with all of the positives.
The Pacing: In all honestly this should've been two or three movies. The movie throws many concepts at the audience and yet it never goes fully in depth with any of them (save for a few that are vital to the plot). In one of the scenes a guy is being chased by a kaiju due to an experiment, however it isn't explained fully why the kaiju is chasing him. Another scene (spoiler) shows that one of the kaijus is pregnant. I was expecting that this would lead to capturing one of the babies (which was a goal that the main scientist wanted at the beginning) or possibly this would allow people to actually control a kaiju much like a jaeger. However the baby kaiju are used for nothing other than a little bit of comedy and as a plot device to add some tension.
There are many things in this movie which would've been interesting if expanded on. I understand that this movie was kind of a risk, so I know that they couldn't make three movies, however there are a lot of ideas that are important to the plot, yet are only on screen for several minutes. Such as the after effects of being in The Drift alone. What are the side-effects? Why do they occur? What kind of emotional trauma can it do to a person? Other questions such as: how come the "coastal wall" is brought up so briefly and then it disappears very quickly? This movie is full of "unfinished" concepts.
My last gripe about the pacing revolves around the extra pilots. The movie establishes that there were a lot of jaegers, and it shows a large cast of pilots. It would've been very interesting to have gotten to see each jaeger in action more and for character interaction with the other pilots. However, if the movie had all of the character interaction that I wanted then it would easily have been a 4 hour long movie.
Clichés: I won't lie, this movie does have a bunch of clichés in it. Being cliché isn't always a bad thing, and this movie is actually able to use clichés to its advantage. For people who don't read mangas, watch anime, or watch old Godzilla movies; they probably won't understand that some of the irrational behavior of the characters are typical in mangas and anime. This gives the movie a sort of "real life anime" feeling which very few movies have ever been able to accomplish. Some people will see this as stupid, and others will enjoy it. I enjoyed it for the most part.
The Positives: Visuals: This movie must be seen in 3D. I saw Avatar, How to Train Your Dragon, The Avengers and many other movies in 3D and this movie takes the grand prize for the best use of 3D I have ever seen. The movie is just simply gorgeous to look at, and it is obvious that a lot of work and talent went into making this movie look fantastic. The water effects are extremely realistic and everything IS JUST SO COOL TO WATCH!!! The very first battle was one of the most amazing fight scenes I have ever seen (I actually smiled in the movie theater during every fight scene... it is a very good looking movie).
I will go on a little bit more about the visuals. The kaiju themselves are very well designed. Each one is unique from the others and seems to fill its own niche. Some have blades for a head, some fly, others are like giant gorillas etc. and each one is just as entertaining to watch as the next. The jaegers are very nice looking as well, however the movie doesn't spend as much time as I would've liked on the other jaegers.
The Action: The flow of the action in this movie is good. This isn't just about how the visuals look in the action, but actually what is happening in the action. Transformers suffered from great visuals but uninteresting action. Fortunately, this movie succeeds in both great visuals and great action. All of the fights are clever, unique, and crazy awesome.
The Acting: All of the actors did a great job in this movie, however I will say that sometimes the acting was a little bit over the top at times. I will mention (I said this earlier) that this movie appears to be more like an anime/comic in the sense of how the characters act. All of the acting is good, it just depends if you like what they are portraying or not. Another nice thing is that most of the actors here aren't extremely famous. I like seeing new faces on the screen.
Verdict: Pacific Rim is an extremely entertaining movie that understands how to make good action and how to make a monster movie. All of the parts of the movie are very interesting, sadly the movie is just too short to be as good as it could be. If there was more character interaction, more struggles with the past, actual character development, and more expansion of the Pacific Rim universe; then this movie would've been perfect.
Either way, go see Pacific Rim and enjoy the ride.